Catastrophic Autism Rate Now 1 in 88, 1 in 54 Boys; via Canary Party

Advocacy Groups ask What Will it Take for the Feds to Act?
When will the federal health authorities wake up? Will it be 1 in 25? 1 in 10? How many children have to suffer from autism to call this an emergency?

New York, NY, March 29, 2012 Grassroots autism advocacy organizations representing over 100,000 autism families will hold a press conference Monday, April 2, 2012, World Autism Day, at 11:00 at Hilton Manhattan East, 304 East 42nd St., to push for official recognition of autism as a national public health emergency and to analyze the federal health authorities ongoing failure to respond.

Yesterday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced new prevalence rates among 8-year-olds from 2008 as 1 in 88 children and 1 in 54 boys. These numbers are staggering, said Katie Wright, daughter of Autism Speaks co-founders Bob and Suzanne Wright and board member of the National Autism Association. When will the federal health authorities wake up? Will it be 1 in 25? 1 in 10? How many children have to suffer from autism to call this an emergency?

Recent research from Stanford University conclusively shows that environmental triggers account for most cases of autism, not genetic predisposition. Parents have been calling on the NIH to study environmental factors for decades, but almost all the money has gone into genetic studies. No matter how high the autism rate soars, the CDCs continued denial of an autism epidemic is certitude comparable to death and taxes, said Mark Blaxill, Editor-at-Large of Age of Autism web-based newspaper.

These advocacy groups believe that ongoing government research appears to be driven by corporations that fear being implicated in any environmental relationship with the autism epidemic, and believe that these apparent conflicts of interest must be exposed.

The organizations call for three urgent action steps:

1. Secretary Sebelius should declare a national health emergency and order the NIH and CDC to shift their research focus to prevention efforts, especially investigation of long overlooked environmental factors.

2. The Government Accounting Office should initiate a study of past research funding that has ignored environmental causes. We need to understand whether this was the result of lobbying to avoid possible liability that might be uncovered with examination of environmental triggers.

3. The U.S. House of Representatives Government Reform Committee should initiate promised hearings as soon as possible on the failure of federal health agencies in appropriately responding to this epidemic. It has been about ten years since this Committee examined the role of the federal authorities in the autism epidemic. We can think of no other instance of any comparable epidemic that has gone on so long without Congressional oversight.

I have seen a claim somewhere that one state in the USA now has a prevalence of maybe 1 in 12 young boys (which seems way too high). That has to be environmental (presuming its correct) as genetics could not account for it. It does not however rule out the possibility of genetic susceptibity plus environment. This is indeed a crisis, and perhaps indicates just how far they might be prepared to ingore a CFS or ME epidemic. In any case its a global disgrace, and its wrong to single out just the USA, every single advanced country has some blame. So does the medical profession for allowing it to come to this. In fact I wonder if the factors that led to the medical profession to ignore ME and CFS might not be the same factors that led it to ignore autism.

A cause has to be identified and proper ongoing surveillance is required so this calamity can be tracked. Research funding is a priority. I would also be looking at clusters with much higher incidence of autism to see what environmental factors in those locations are different.

If the French experience that a majority can be successfully treated with antibiotics is able to be replicated globally, this strongly indicates undiagnosed pathogens as the cause.

Advocacy Groups ask What Will it Take for the Feds to Act?
When will the federal health authorities wake up? Will it be 1 in 25? 1 in 10? How many children have to suffer from autism to call this an emergency?

Be careful when talking to Aspies or Autism Spectrum Disorder people, especially parents.

Some believe that it is not an illness but one end of the genetic diversity in humans.
That Aspie children grow up to lead fullfing even gifted lives.
Calling it an illness can strongly offend them, the same as calling our disease CFS or psychiatric does for us.

This was the basis for a medical alert on Autism here in Australia. They also mentioned older father's.
Convenient that the solution to this problem won't cost the government a cent.

Meanwhile pregnant mothers happily chuff away on their cigarrettes or get plastered or stoned, funny how I never here that is linked to any of these problems anymore (used to here it alot in the 80's & 90's).
I should say the same goes for the father's of these babies, even some prescription meds have warnings for men planning a family (some Epilepsy meds).

Be careful when talking to Aspies or Autism Spectrum Disorder people, especially parents.

Some believe that it is not an illness but one end of the genetic diversity in humans.
That Aspie children grow up to lead fullfing even gifted lives.
Calling it an illness can strongly offend them, the same as calling our disease CFS or psychiatric does for us.

Meanwhile pregnant mothers happily chuff away on their cigarrettes or get plastered or stoned, funny how I never here that is linked to any of these problems anymore (used to here it alot in the 80's & 90's).
I should say the same goes for the father's of these babies, even some prescription meds have warnings for men planning a family (some Epilepsy meds).